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If there’s an upside to her nomination, it’s that she may force policymakers to admit the U.S. is headed toward privatization of its education system.

It’s hard to imagine someone less qualified to oversee the nation’s schools than Betsy DeVos, the Trump nominee for secretary of education whose Senate confirmation hearing is set for Wednesday. DeVos did not attend public schools, nor did her children. She has never been a teacher, administrator, practitioner or scholar of education. In fact, one wonders whether she has ever actually set foot in a public school.

Instead, DeVos is a billionaire who grew up in the Christian Reformed Church and would like to see religious schools supported by public funding. She once described education reform as a way to “advance God’s kingdom.” Born into the powerful Prince family of Michigan, DeVos is part of the Christian right royalty in the United States. Her father, Edgar Prince, helped found the anti-gay Family Research Council. Her brother, Erik Prince, is founder of the mercenary group Blackwater Worldwide, which received large contracts from the government during the Iraq War. Betsy later married into the DeVos family, billionaires who founded the Amway company and also have deep ties to the Christian right.

The two families have contributed generously to anti-gay and anti-labor causes over the years, but Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick, have shown a special passion for privatizing public education. In 2000, they used their clout to organize and fund a referendum in Michigan that would have allowed public money to flow to private and religious schools through the use of school vouchers, a practice the state constitution forbids. Michigan voters defeated the referendum resoundingly, 69-31 percent, but that didn’t end DeVos’ crusade.

She also chairs the American Federation for Children, a lobbying group that advocates for so-called school choice. DeVos has become a leading national proponent of school vouchers, which can be spent at religious schools. But where they are banned, as in Michigan, she has also pushed for the proliferation of charter schools and opposed efforts to hold them accountable.

School choice advocates seldom mention that every dollar allocated to vouchers or charters is a dollar subtracted from public schools, which are compelled to lay off teachers, increase class sizes and cut programs in response. Meanwhile, voluminous research on charters shows that they do not necessarily offer better quality education. Even those schools that get high test scores often achieve this by cherry-picking new students and culling existing ones through high attrition rates. Vouchers, meanwhile, help prop up religious schools that teach creationism and employ few, if any, certified teachers.

The DeVoses and their foundations have spent millions nationwide to elect pro-school choice candidates to school boards, state legislatures and Congress. Anyone who wants to understand the failure of the school choice movement should look to Michigan. Charter schools were first authorized in the state in 1993. In 2014, a year-long investigation by the Detroit Free Press concluded that the state was spending $1 billion annually on charters that performed poorly, and were neither accountable nor transparent. Today, 80 percent of the state’s approximately 300 charter schools are operated by for-profit management. Since the onset of school choice, Michigan’s performance on national tests has steadily declined.

If there’s an upside to DeVos' nomination, it’s that she may force policymakers to admit the U.S. is headed toward privatization of its education system. Previous education secretaries, including Arne Duncan under President Obama and Rod Paige under President George W. Bush, have pushed school choice policies based on free-market ideology. But during the Obama years, the Department of Education vocally supported charter schools while pretending it could draw the line at vouchers. DeVos, to the contrary, makes no bones about her goal of clearing the path for vouchers. Her disastrous legacy in Michigan demonstrates that once policymakers accept school choice as a positive path, there is no philosophical barrier to other kinds of privatization.

If DeVos’ nomination goes to a vote, her chances for confirmation would seem to be quite good, given her family’s history of generosity to Republican campaigns. Among those who have benefitted from the largesse of DeVos and her husband are four senators who serve on the Senate education committee, as well as Senate leader Mitch McConnell. If confirmed, DeVos will be the first education secretary who is actively hostile to public education.

That is what I do not get.These so called free enterprise christian conservatives have more than enough money to buy and pay for schools IF they truly believe it works. That is not at all what they want or think works .This is all about getting rid of the founding fathers Idea of education a unifying set of knowledge and principles that then can be expanded as the education enhances.

Posted by GrJacobs on 2017-02-07 17:35:21

Children are not cars. They are not to be manufactured. You CANNOT equate students to cars and school to factories/businesses. THAT comment alone shows you do no understand one iota of the school system.

Posted by rosemiller85 on 2017-02-07 10:22:43

Your ignorance as to what Diane Ravitch knows is astounding. I suggest you read her book "Reign of Error" to learn something. You don't know public education nor are you willing to learn. I dare you to read her books.

Posted by rosemiller85 on 2017-02-07 10:15:34

Diane Ravitch may not understand that in the United States, kids must go to school in a district where they reside. In the large city near here, ghetto schools are little more than holding tanks for prison. There is little incentive to improve them because teachers (or administrators) cannot be fired for mal-performance due to the cold dead hand of the NEA and AFT.

If Ford cars broke down every week and Chevys were reliable, people would all buy Chevys. Ford would either fix the problem or go out of business. Either way the car buyers would win.

The solution to our schools is to give the parents the same choices. Why should their kids not have the same opportunities as Obama's daughters, and just about every other politician? As it is, I think kids' futures are trashed so that bad teachers can get paid for almost nothing, and retire on the public dole at an early age. If you disagree with me, that's fine, but why not let the PARENTS decide what's best, not the union bosses?

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2017-02-07 08:53:00

Sorry, but Diane Ravitch knows more about education than you ever will. Politicians and union bosses do NOT decide where children cannot the best education. Your ignorance is astounding.

Posted by rosemiller85 on 2017-02-07 08:23:58

You mean she wants PARENTS, instead of UNION BOSSES and POLITICIANS, to be allowed to decide where their kids will get the best education? Oh the horror! You've got Betsy DeVos on one side and Josef Stalin on the other. Why does the author come down on the side of Stalin?

Posted by Bob Fritz on 2017-01-15 18:03:54

I am from Michigan. She has destroyed the public school system here, as well as the totally Republican hold on the state. She is extremely wealthy, a bully & a monster really. Sound like someone with fake red hair whose name rhymes with Dump ????

Posted by Trublusu on 2017-01-14 15:33:03

Full Disclosure: I enrolled my child in a private school for six years - paying upwards of $10,000 per year for the privilege AND paying my full public school taxes as well.

There are all sorts of valid reasons why a parent might want a child to enroll in a private school. That is a choice that can be respected, as long as the private school in question is properly licensed, teaches the public school curriculum and meets the standards of education mandated by the state.

That said, there is NO VALID REASON why parents who make that choice should be exempt from paying their fair share for the public education system. Not having a driver's license does not exempt people paying for highway construction and maintenance, not frequenting libraries does not exempt people from not paying for buildings and books, not having eating meat does not exempt people from paying for meat safety inspectors and not believing in war does not exempt people from paying for the military.

If people choose to send their children to a proper private school, that is their right, but it does not give them the right to withhold their taxes for an essential public service and it certainly does not give them the right to have their private school fees subsidized by taxpayers' money which, at the same time, drains desperately needed cash from the school system intended to serve the entire society.

Posted by goodsensecynic on 2017-01-14 12:31:08

I absolutely agree that all of society has an obligation to support and fund education.

I'm not so sure I agree that the delivery of the education must be delivered by a government institution. Public education should be a choice, as well as other choices such a private, charter, or religious institutions. A fixed per-pupil amount should be determined and made available to every student in the system, but the spending, and any supplement, chosen by the parents.

Posted by kastigar on 2017-01-14 12:11:04

If ever a fox was in charge of a hen house.

Posted by Peter Mock on 2017-01-11 19:50:24

One little problem. When a student withdraws from a public school (like when they move to a new district), the existing school loses a student AND the money from the state. Class size is reduced, but so is money.